NEW DELHI ― Students, journalists and teachers protested in the Indian capital Tuesday after a student union leader’s arrest and subsequent violence by Hindu nationalists.
The uproar has once again sparked allegations that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party are displaying intolerance and cracking down on political dissent in the name of patriotism.
Police cordons blocked right-wing Hindus from entering the campus of Jawaharlal Nehru University, where thousands of students have been protesting for days.
Police also arrested Delhi University lecturer S.A.R. Geelani before dawn. He and JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar are accused of sedition for participating in events where slogans against India allegedly were shouted along with criticism against the 2013 secret hanging of a Kashmiri separatist convicted of attacking Parliament.
Few JNU students attended classes in New Delhi on Monday. Later, mobs of lawyers and BJP supporters attacked students outside the courthouse where Kumar was appearing.
The BJP supporters called the reporters and students anti-nationals, and demanded they leave India and go to archrival Pakistan. Police said they were investigating allegations from both sides.
Human Resource Minister Smriti Irani told reporters that “the nation can never tolerate an insult to Mother India.” The home minister, Rajnath Singh, tweeted that anyone shouting anti-India slogans “will not be tolerated or spared.”
